True Blue
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: Angeal thinks about Harry and settling down. Harry thinks about Angeal and the fate of planet earth. EXPERIMENTAL DYSTOPIA UNFAITHFULNESS CROSSOVER SLASH Angeal Hewley/Harry Potter


A/N: These are the parallel perspectives of two linked individuals. The themes are exploitation, character, and compassion (giving and receiving). Bear with me – I know it's experimental and, in colloquial speech, "fucking weird". Who knows, though; maybe you'll like it.

**True Blue**

I'm not a faithful man. I never have been. I've tried, sure. And for years I told myself the usual lies about _for the right person _and _at a different time in my life, _but those are, like I said, lies. _Delusions_. I can be a little self-deluding. Who isn't? How many of us are really that good at making presentations or making a mean casserole, or whatever else it is that ordinary people boast about? In my case, I'm a terrible shot (not that I'd ever tell people that – can you imagine the ribbing I'd get? A General who can't shoot? Forget it).

Harry's faithful, though. He says he doesn't care what I do, but damn it that makes me feel so fucking guilty. I wish that he'd cheat on me just once so I could stop feeling like the bad guy all of the time. That gets old…but not old enough for me to leave him, because, in spite of my cheating ways, I love that saintly bastard. He takes care of me in a way I didn't know I needed to be taken care of. He is home, the place I come back to when my body and soul hurt and I just need somebody.

Except Harry's not here anymore, not for half a year. One morning over breakfast he just said that he had to go and take care of some stuff and that he would be leaving in two hours. I was still half-asleep, but I managed to ask him when he thought he'd be back. "In a little while." That's all he said. I haven't seen him since. I think he might be dead. I filed a missing person report, but nothing came of it.

In his absence I managed to fuck my way through the rest of the city, and now I feel dirty in a way I never did before. Maybe I'm getting old. Or maybe I'm just tired of seeing his face on every person I take to bed, man or woman, young or old.

Fuck this. I can't stand it; feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, dry-mouthed, quiver-bellied. Is he coming back? I don't know. I don't even know if I want him to. Without him as a constant presence in my life, I've had no choice but to actually pay attention to the kind of person I've developed into. I'm not happy about what I see. Sure, I have more excuses for bad behavior than most people. My body was used as an experimental testing ground for the weaponization of Mako, I watched my best friends go crazy and get themselves killed, and I've survived two failed government regimes (ShinRa Sr. and Jr., may you rest in peace). If I want to be a selfish promiscuous barely-functioning alcoholic, that is who I will be.

Except that's not a person I would be friends with, much less want to live with. I'm almost forty now, twice Harry's age (I know, I know. I had no business dating someone so young). Maybe its time to pull myself together so that if (when!) Harry comes back, he'll find somebody who deserves him.

O

Skipping between continents is a nauseating experience that results in migraines, joint tension, and insomnia, among other things. It also leads to the feeling of having been run over by a trolley. Now, magnify that by a thousand and you'll have some idea of how awful it feels to travel through the spatial-temporal fabric of reality into an alternate universe. Does your head hurt? Yeah, mine too.

I guess it's good that I've got someone I love enough to make the inter-universe skip.

Angeal is not somebody that I would've introduced to my parents if they were alive, granted, but he suits me just fine. He doesn't ask questions or expect anything from me other than a biweekly fuck (at minimum) and occasional emotional support. He's a little unstable, but I'm hardly a paragon of mental health myself. Pot, kettle, black. You know what I'm trying to say. And even if I did mind, those biweekly sessions are worth the trip, let me tell you.

He's not the reason I decided to arrange things to stay here for good, though. Things on earth, what's left of it, are not so good these days. After the universal cancer fiasco from a dizzy cocktail of asparatame, electronics dumping, and the long-term effects of the Green Revolution, things fell apart pretty quick. The most frightening thing for me, even beyond the flooding of the global South and the hurricane that killed most of my friends from the War (and the U.K.), are the pits where they buried the sick, the disabled and the elderly when it was decided that earth's dwindling resources could not afford to support the weak.

Stupidly, I tried to do something, anything, to help. My body is a nuclear reactor of magic, but it would've taken an army of me to stop even the smallest facet of the collapse from occurring. That was how I finally learned that I couldn't, cannot, save everyone. I could barely save myself. Hell, my presence on Gaia was an accident. I'm still not entirely sure what happened. There was a flash of light, an intense swelling of my magical aura, and there I was in the middle of Midgar.

I came here to stay because there is nothing left on earth. I couldn't believe it when I finally figured out how to go back. I remember when words like desertification and extinction were just fancy jargon. I never expected to be confronted by an empty gutted wasteland. Don't get me wrong- the bodies of mammals littered the landscape, but there was nothing alive. Not even the iron-faced woman I found living in a cave was alive. Her eyes were as dead as the barren trees that clustered like chilly stick figures around her make-shift shelter.

She didn't want my help, and I spent half a year looking for someone who did. Finally I gave up. Giving up hurt worse than anything I've ever done.

At least I know who does need me. who knows? Maybe Gaia needs somebody to slowly rebuild her infrastructure. And if I end up building Angeal's infrastructure in the process, who's to blame me? Even heroes get lonely sometimes.

I guess loyalty (and love) means different things to different people.

O

END


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